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The reign of Governor Lachlan Macquarie is often looked upon as a new beginning in Australian history, a turning-point. In reality it marked the end of a policy.

Macquarie was sent on a fool's errand. The colony was changing, but his commission and instructions followed the old pattern. He was to break the trade monopoly, suppress the rum traffic, encourage and foster a community of peasant farmers, to economize, to exercise a list of formidable powers. The one new factor was the presence of his own regiment. The honour was originally intended for Colonel Nightingall, but, his health being unequal to it, it was passed to his second in command. Macquarie had seen considerable service as a soldier in America, India, and Egypt; he had had experience in administration as military secretary to the Governor of Bengal. His record was good, he had integrity, high-mindedness, a distinguished bearing, a massive style in prose and speech, considerable vanity, no tact, no sense of humour, and he was delighted with his appointment. He believed every word of his commission and, whilst taking his obedience to his superiors as much for granted as he did that of his inferiors to himself, he interpreted his instructions in the light of his powers. He liked the idea of power, but he intended to exercise it in the most gracious and benevolent manner. He underrated the colony he came to govern, for he thought of it as still a blank sheet on which he could set his impress. He was wrong; a great deal of history had been packed into twenty-two years, a compendium of experience, so that in retrospect it is the Governor, with his good intentions and patent remedies, who appears naive.

Like Governor Phillip, Macquarie came prepared for his charge, but not solely by his own reflections. He arrived well armoured in preconceived ideas, which even in the face of reality he did not lay aside. One of the strongest influences was a letter, given to Macquarie for perusal on the voyage out, from T. W. Plummer, a theorist who, although he had never visited New South Wales, had evolved a simple scheme to make the colony prosper. What Australia needed, thought Mr Plummer, was markets. Geographically there was no handy market, but one could easily and inexpensively be created if the Government gave the monopoly of distilling spirits to a private company. Excess wheat could be turned into spirits, but in times of scarcity the Government should have the power to stop the distillation and divert the grain to the Commissariat. In this way good and bad seasons would be equalized. A high tax could be levied on spirits and they would still be cheaper than the imported article. Money would be kept in the colony, revenue would accrue, and the traffic though a monopoly could be easily regulated. This was a curious idea to take root in the mind of a man, one of whose duties it was to suppress the rum trade, for naturally the monopoly could not prosper and the revenue would not roll in unless consumption were high. Nevertheless we find this motif continually cropping up in Macquarie's administration. Another idea of Plummer's which appealed to the Governor-elect was that land in towns should in future be granted on a freehold instead of a leasehold tenure and that a building clause be inserted in each grant binding the recipient to erect buildings of a certain standard. This, Macquarie felt, would be a cheap way of beautifying his capital.

There were two other known influences affecting Macquarie before he took up his duties. One was the spectacle of a colonial bank operating successfully at the Cape, the second was the impact of Foveaux, the first officer to greet him on arrival. It was Foveaux who supplied him with first-hand information about the colony and its inhabitants, who with just the correct shade of deference, praised some and warned him against others. Macquarie was impressionable and impressed. Foveaux always remained for him an authority and a pattern of what an officer should be. Colonel Paterson, the once intrepid traveller, was now old, sick, and on the point of retirement. For that reason probably the Home Government did not think it worth while to take any action against him for condoning the rebellion.

When on 17th January 1810 Bligh returned from Van Diemen's Land in Porpoise Macquarie received him with every courtesy. He could afford to, and the salutes, parades, compliments must have infuriated the old seadog more than insults. He was the failure, Macquarie was urbanely sure of easy success. They hated one another at sight, and the three months before Bligh got himself off with his entourage, his evidence, his cloud of witnesses, Macquarie found trying in the extreme. He even wrote to Lord Castlereagh at the Colonial Office: ". . . I must acknowledge that he is a most unsatisfactory Man to transact business with, from his want of candor and decision, in so much that it is impossible to place the smallest reliance on the fulfillment of any engagement he enters into."

There were incidents. Macquarie had sealed the room at Government House where Bligh had perforce left his papers. When it was unsealed the papers had gone and Johnston was suspected of having taken them for his defence. Bligh took with him to England sixteen people, including Judge-Advocate Atkins and Commissary Palmer, to the great inconvenience of Colonial business. And, what is more, he quite filled up Hindostan and Dromedary, which Macquarie had hoped to use for sending home the 102nd Regiment, a formidable task as in its long sojourn it had acquired 105 wives and 98 children. The expense of it all was great, and Lord Castlereagh did not like expense.

Correct to the last, Macquarie gave a farewell (or thanksgiving) ball. The Sydney Gazette, which King had founded in 1803 and of which Macquarie was to make considerable use, described it.

Government House was neatly decorated and brilliantly lighted; the ball room hung round with festoons of flowers encircling the initials of Mrs Putland and Commodore Bligh in a very neat device. In the evening a ball was given, which was supported with uncommon vivacity until "the twinkling stars gave notice of approaching day"; a handsome firework was also displayed on the occasion between the hours of 10; and 11; and no single circumstance was omitted that could convey an idea of the respect entertained by His Excellency, for the distinguished persons in Compliment of whom the entertainment had been given.

Four days later Bligh really departed with excessive pomp and ceremony, but unfortunately his widowed daughter, Mary Putland, stayed behind to marry Colonel O'Connell and keep alive her father's wrongs.

Macquarie declared a general amnesty and got to work. He surveyed his domain and found the stores empty. Besides sending urgent and copious requests home he caused 200 acres to be sown with potatoes and ordered 200 tons of wheat from Bengal through local merchants. He was able to get a cut price by giving them leave to import 20,000 gallons of rum. He was putting Plummer's ideas into effect in a small way.

He turned his attention to "Morality, Virtue and Temperance". Not only did he exhort, but he reduced the licensed public houses in Sydney from 75 to 20. Like King, he endeavoured to substitute beer for spirits. He insisted that all convicts go to church. He encouraged marriage by pardoning convict women who could find respectable husbands. He paid especial attention to the assigning of women so that their morals would be safeguarded. He set up a co-educational charity school. . .

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